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Changes in gene expression in maize kernel in response to water and salt stress

  • Biotic and Abiotic Stress
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Abstract

Increasing pressure on limited water resources for agriculture, together with the global temperature increase, highlight the importance of breeding for drought-tolerant cultivars. A better understanding of the molecular nature of drought stress can be expected through the use of genomics approaches. Here, a macroarray of ≈2500 maize cDNAs was used for determining transcript changes during water- and salt-stress treatments of developing kernels at 15 days after pollination. Normalization of relative transcript abundances was carried out using a human nebulin control sequence. The proportions of transcripts that changed significantly in abundance upon treatment (>2-fold compared to the control) were determined; 1.5% of the sequences examined were up-regulated by high salinity and 1% by water stress. Both stresses induced 0.8% of the sequences. These include genes involved in various stress responses: abiotic, wounding and pathogen attack (abscisic acid response binding factor, glycine and proline-rich proteins, pathogenesis-related proteins, etc.). The proportion of down-regulated genes was higher than that for up-regulated genes for water stress (3.2%) and lower for salt stress (0.7%), although only eight genes, predominantly involved in energy generation, were down-regulated in both stress conditions. Co-expression of genes of unknown function under defined conditions may help in elucidating their roles in coordinating stress responses.

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported by Max–Planck–Gesellschaft stipendium, to V.A. and by the EU-FP5 project QLK-2000-00302, SeedDesign.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Carl von Linne Weg 10, 50829, Cologne, Germany

    Violeta Andjelkovic & Richard Thompson

  2. Maize Research Institute, “Zemun Polje”, S. Bajica 1, 11185, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro

    Violeta Andjelkovic

  3. INRA-URLEG, BP 86510, 21065, Dijon, France

    Richard Thompson

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  1. Violeta Andjelkovic
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  2. Richard Thompson
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Correspondence to Violeta Andjelkovic.

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Communicated by R. Schmidt

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Andjelkovic, V., Thompson, R. Changes in gene expression in maize kernel in response to water and salt stress. Plant Cell Rep 25, 71–79 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-005-0037-x

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